What would a suitable OS (Linux distribution) be for an old Raspberry Pi B+ (2012, 512 MB RAM)?
The latest official OS comes with Chromium which doesn't work. It is also very slow.
It will be running an Adafruit touchscreen, display a website and run a Python web server.
I have most Pi models from model B.
In my experience Raspberry Pi OS / Raspbian works better on most (particularly old models).
I still run Stretch on my B+ (which is running a logger) and agree Chromium, while it works is painfully slow.
I wouldn't even consider Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye (The latest official OS) on any of the older Pi. Buster (which is still available as Legacy) is a better choice as Bullseye is targeted at later models.
The BCM2835 SoC used in early Pi is based on ARM6.
The early Pi software was adapted to ARM6 and applications were designed for the limitations of the CPU & memory. This particularly applied to browsers.
Recent OS are increasingly designed to utilise the capabilities of newer hardware.
If you want to use 13 year old hardware you can't expect 2023 software to run but if you stick to the original software performance should be adequate (although increasingly web sites use new features not supported by older software).
Midori & Epiphany are still in the repository.
I ended up installing the latest Wheezy installation which comes with Epiphany, and this seems to be an acceptable solution for my use case. It isn't fast, but it is mostly working (apart from the SSL handshake failed that I get on some HTTPS websites).
On my old Pi1B and Pi1B+ [and many newer Pi] I use Bullseye but only the lite version, i.e. not the desktop but command line only and it is fine. They run headless and I access them remotely via Putty. Just sharing what I do
It's best to try the 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS Lite options first. Pick the basic images with no desktop.
If you are looking for an extremely lightweight Linux distribution, you could try the very minimalist Alpine Linux but you're likely to need to do more work to get it up and running with what you need.
Chromium is resource-intensive compared to specialist browsers designed for old hardware.
There are many text-terminal browsers available that won't provide you with a modern user experience but will work on very old hardware:
Alternatively, if you have managed to get a X-Windows system working, there are GUI-based browsers that are far less resource intensive than Chromium. An internet search will find more options but Falkon is worth considering.
